My favorite was the bit in the old show where they unceremoniously cut out a shot of Megaman finishing off the bad guy. It was just this hard cut from there being a bad guy there to... I guess he shot him or something because he's gone now? Who knows. What baffles me the most is that if there's one thing BS&P is consistent with, it's that it's okay to kill guys if they're either robots or undead. But this was a Frankenstein robot, so I guess being both a robot and an undead wraps it back around to unacceptable? I don't even know.

Anyway, that show was fucking terrible. They actually released a soundtrack album. You know, just in case you ever wondered what happened to Mr. Big. I picked it up for a buck along with "A String Quartet Tribute to Jessica Simpson" because I'm a shithead who likes ironic coasters.

I don't remember him ever shooting the bad guys, either; he just shot the ceiling until rubble fell on them. Which is another favorite acceptable form of cartoon violence.

The opening titles sure looked like they were from a much better show, though.

And then there was that weird turn-of-the-century anime where even though it was Japanese for some reason they referred to all the characters by their American names (Mega Man and Protoman instead of Rockman and Blues, etc.). Never did watch it all the way through or figure out what the deal with it was.

On the one hand, I kinda wish it hadn't become noteworthy when Simpsons does a good episode. But damned if that wasn't the best episode in about a year, and some nice justification for my continuing to watch the damn thing every week.

It also makes for an interesting combination of brass-tacks, back-to-basics stuff -- a simple, character-focused plot built around the relationship between two of the principals, with a B-story focusing on the other two -- with something the show's never done before: a non-Treehouse of Horror Halloween show (the usual Treehouse episode will be next week). We've never actually seen the Simpsons celebrate Halloween, aside from the framing sequences of the first three Treehouses. And the Time Warp number was just a bonus. (Remember when Simpsons used to do musical numbers like all the time? I miss that.)

Simpsons writers, when you do a show this good, it makes it all the more disappointing that it only happens once or twice a season.

I sure thought so. I thought it had a few of the common weaknesses of current episodes -- too many plot threads without enough resolution to any of them -- but on the other hand, for an episode about relationships and time jumps, that's to be expected to a certain extent.

There have been a couple of clunkers this season, but there have also been a couple of great ones.

So on Sunday night's Simpsons, Bart got a new teacher and Homer watched an informational video of the sort that, in the old days, would have been hosted by Troy McClure. At this point, I'm going, "Jesus Christ, Simpsons, stop reminding me about everybody who's died!"